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Join the Friends of Amida Trust, network, on ning.com Conference papers, discussion, social networking and more http://amidatrust.ning.com |
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Current News Stories Special Item... GROWING FOCUS ON ARTS Interest in creativity has become an increasingly prominent part of Amida-shu life. The development of the Maitri Project as an engaged chaplaincy in Leicester, has spawned a series of day workshops and other initiatives on arts and spirituality. Amida Trust participates in the Cultural Exchanges Week at De Montfort University. Every Tuesday evening at The Buddhist House we have a session of Pandramatics. This August at Amida France Dharmavidya and Prasada will lead the Arts in France week. Special Item... NEW PATRON  KENNETH TANAKA President of the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies “ I welcome being included in the growing family of Amida Trust, which, in my view, has successfuly begun to share the message of Pure Land Buddhism in a context not encumbered by traditional institutions, while not rejecting or criticizing them. I appreciate its openness to push the boundaries to ally with like-minded groups and to articulate the teachings in a more accessible manner for us ordinary beings of the 21st century.” Kenneth Tanaka is President of IASBS, the leading academic association for Pureland Buddhism, author of the book Ocean, and a good friend of Dharmavidya and also of Professor Bloom who is another much valued patron, supporter of Amida Trust, and mentor to Dharmavidya. We are delighted to have these leading authorities from Japan and the West on the Amida team. |
 the Amida Association, an association for spirituality and its application. Amida-kai is the association for everybody interested in the Trust's work, for the application of spiritual principles to empirical world problems, and to the exploration of the meaning of spirituality irrespective of faith alignment. |
 the Amida Pureland Buddhist religious society centred upon the Amida Order. Amida-shu is the religious community within Amida Trust, practising Pureland Buddhism, following in a tradition of nembutsu practice developed in Japan over the past 800 years and before that from China and India. |
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JULY 2008 10th-30th SUMMER TEACHINGS - Purelland Buddhism and its application in society, culture and the arts, with Dharmavidya & Prasada AUGUST 2008 1st-20th ARTS IN FRANCE - Our annual arts retreat at Amida France, with Prasada & Dharmavidya 9th-10th INTRODUCTORY RETREAT: Learn Pureland Basics SEPTEMBER 2008 19th-21st INTRODUCTORY RETREAT - Learn the basics of Pureland Buddhism OCTOBER 2008 4th-5th MEET AMIDA - Introducing the work of the Trust and Community 11th-19th BUDDHIST PYSCHOLOGY - Nine day Course Block - Hearing the Other NOVEMBER 2008 1st-2nd CHAPLINCY & SPIRITUAL FACILITAION - Spiritual relationships, complex relationships, healing realtionships. 7th-9th EXILE & RETURN - Retreat in memory or the exile of Honin Shonin and disciples. DECEMBER 2008 1st-8th BODHI RETREAT Ceremonies, steachings, seminars, gatherings and the 24hr nembutsu. JANUARY 2009 17th-18th PEER LEARNING WEEKEND student led, chance to bank up peer learning hours and spend time with each other. 24th-25th HONEN MEMORIAL RETREAT Celebrating Honin Shonin's life and teaching. FEBURARY 2009 21st-March 1st PSYCHOTHERAPY COURSE BLOCK Creativity and Focus in Therapy, with Dharmavidya, Prasada, and Sundari. MARCH 2009 19th-29th OJO RETREAT Right Effort with Other Power, including memorials and Paramita Day. APRIL 2009 10th-13th DEVELOPING SPIRIT THROUGH ART Building a creative community, developing practice through art. |
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Thought for The Week
The Amida paradigm is based upon the belief that if we remain modest about human nature and just entrust ourselves, miracles of creativity and growth will constantly erupt in our midst, whereas if we were to try to rely upon our own power, cleverness or self-direction primarily we would stiffle this creative source. Our practice thus precipitates us into Amida's mandala of spontaneity. Particularly important expressions of this creativity have been developments in Buddhist Psychology, Buddhist Arts, Social Engagement and Aidwork, and Volunteering, as well as religious vocations and the creation of communities. |
| Creative Buddhism in the Pureland Tradition: |
| Be creative with your life. Amida will inspire you. Amida Trust is both a dedicated Pureland Sangha and also a wide and creative network of spiritually inclined ordinary people from many orientations. Out of this rich diversity has arisen devotional, inspirational, educational, social, community, campaigning, and cultural projects. To join Amida Trust one becomes a member of Amida-kai or of Amida-shu. Membership of the Kai is open to anybody sympathising with creative spirituality. Membership of the Shu is by invitation. |
| Dharma Community in a Different Light |
| The difference
at Amida is what is called “Other Power”. Other power is the flow of
love and creativity that comes from Amida Nyorai. You could call it the
cosmic creative force, or the accumulated merit of the Buddhas. There
are essentially two kinds of spirituality.
In one kind you rely upon your own power and try to perfect yourself so
that you, as it were, rise up to heaven by your own inner resources by
doing meditation, following a discipline and realising your higher
self. In the other kind – which is our kind – you abandon self-power
and rely upon a power
that comes from outside yourself, that emerges from the emptiness of
shunyata, that reanimates things as they are rather than demanding that
they change and improve themselves in order to qualify. Consequently
our Dharma centre is different. It is a place of
happenings. According to Pureland Buddhism, Amida is always at work
transforming things. Amida loves our mess and confusion and humanity
and uses it as raw material: a fertile ground from which new beauty,
new life and new truths arise. We are not, therefore, a conservative orthodoxy but a framework for inspiration; a repository of tradition from which new growth is continually springing forth. The core of Amida Trust is the Amida-shu denomination including the Amida Order. Pureland is the most ancient form of non-monastic Buddhism: devotional, inspired, spiritually authentic, socially engaged, psychologically informed, and, above all, grounded in complete faith in the transformative power of Amida. The Amida sangha is a collectivity of diverse people – lay and ordained, married and single, old and young – working together in an organically growing pattern of relations. Here diverse talents flourish within a milieu of creative engagement with one another. We have traditional forms – ceremonies, spiritual exercises, retreats, doctrine, spiritual direction and so on – but we have them in a context of belief that makes them a spring-board not a straight jacket. We are a conduit through which heaven flows into this world; and it does so not because we are special beings in any way but precisely becausee we recognise our ordinariness, our inner ignorance and outer limitations, and so are willing for Amida to take charge. Amida Trust is based in Leicestershire, England, has a centre in Finsbury Park London, a retreat centre in France, a small community in India, and local groups in UK, Belgium, and Hawaii. Read: Dharmavidya on creativity |
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What
else can I do?
Phone us on 0116.2867476 orVisit: The Buddhist House
Or contact a local group: see Centres menu above Retreat with us Join Amida-kai Support Amida Trust. Study; Buddhist psychology Volunteer overseas or closer to home Study On–line Free Tutored Introductory Course Join Friends of Amida: The Structure:  Click to enlarge |
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